Li Datong is a Chinese journalist and former editor of Bingdian (Freezing Point), a weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily newspaper. In 2006 he was the recipient of a Lettre Ulysses award for reportage on his experience at Bingdian

A constant feature of the extraordinary social
flux of contemporary China is the occurrence of serious clashes between the
public and the police. A few examples from May-July 2008 indicate the extent
and variety of this phenomenon:

* on 26 May, police in Chengdu arrested people
who witnessed them attempting to steal tents meant for earthquake-relief work;
this sparked a confrontation between members of the public and the police

* on 28 June, over 10,000 people attacked government and party buildings and set fire to
a police station in Weng'an county, Guizhou province; this action was related
to a belief that a local high-school girl had been raped and killed by people
with links to the government

* on 5 July, family members of a drowned
driver in Fugu county, Shaanxi province attempted to seize the body of the
deceased from police; this sparked a
riot in which three police cars were smashed and seven people arrested

* on 9 July, several police officers in Yuhuan
county, Zhejiang province were injured when over 1,000 migrant workers attacked
their building; this was related to problems migrant workers had had in obtaining
temporary residence permits in the county

* on 17 July, dozens of people were injured
when members of the public clashed with the police in Boluo, Guangdong
province; citizens had suspected the police of beating a motorcyclist to death

* on 19 July, rubber-plantation workers in
Menglian county, Yunnan province held a protest; police opened fire on the
demonstrators, killing two and injuring one.

Li Datong is a Chinese journalist and a former
editor of BingdianFreezing Point), a weekly supplement of
the China Youth Daily newspaper.

When a conflict between the public and police
occurs, the Beijing authorities routinely classify the event under the broad
heading of "mass incidents". Media workers in China know that the term "mass
incident" in fact refers to any incident which has to be quelled using the
police. How many such incidents take place in China each year? The estimate for
2007, collated by weighing a number of sources, is 80,000. But this number is
hard to verify. The authorities strictly prohibit reporting on where incidents
take place, their causes, the extent of casualties and the outcome of the
conflicts.

Even if media outlets become aware that such
an event is taking place, most will not send anyone to investigate it because
they know that their reports will not be publishable. In this light the fact
that so many reports on "mass incidents" have seen the light of day in the
first seven months of 2008 is a real sign of progress. Of all the incidents
that have been reported, the one that has been covered in most detail, and
which has been most discussed online, is one of those listed above: the Weng'an
incident of 28 June 2008.

A
change in the climate

The riot that took place on 28 June in Weng'an
county was even more serious than the protests in Lhasa in mid-March 2008. In
Weng'an, over 10,000 people directly attacked the party committee and
government building, and the local police station. Images
of the chaos spread quickly across the internet. The official media - perhaps
as the result of some modification of the censorship system - broke with the
tradition of covering up such events. At the same time, the news stories that
did appear were full of familiar, hackneyed phrases (such as "a minority of
people incited the masses, who were ignorant of the true situation" and
"attacked the party and government.") The establishment media stuck to this
line even though China's netizens all knew that such reporting was inaccurate
and thousands posted comments questioning the official story.

After three or four days, however, there was a
change in the climate. The Guizhou provincial party secretary Shi
Zongyuan made a personal inspection tour of Weng'an and offered his views on
the fundamental reasons for the unrest. His comments suggested that these went
far beyond the ostensible trigger of the assault on the high-school student:
Shi Zongyuan instead cited the way that the process of developing the mining
industry in the area, accommodating migrants and relocating residents after
their homes had been demolished had repeatedly infringed people's rights.

In dealing with the disputes that these changes
had provoked, local officials had acted brutishly, and even made indiscriminate
use of police power. The county government's failure to
implement strong and fair policies, the party secretary implied, had brought
public resentment to boiling-point."Local authorities have failed to pay
sufficient attention to the concerns of the public", Shi Zongyuan said. "They
have failed to crack down on dark forces and serious criminality. The crime
rate is high, arrest rates are low, and this has created an unsafe
environment."

Shi Zongyuan apologised three times to the
people of Weng'an for the situation in their county. Even more surprising, the
primary target of official sanction was not the rioting townspeople but the
local officials. The county head, county party secretary, chief of police and
commissar were all dismissed from their posts. In the end, even the more
senior prefectural party secretary was sacked over the incident.

The significance of Weng'an is that this is
the first time that local officials have been the first to come under scrutiny
following a "mass incident" (see Simon Elegant, "China Protests: A New Approach?", Time,
4 July 2008). After the initial riot, Hu Jintao himself - general secretary of
the Chinese Communist Party and state president - issued a memo on how the
incident should be handled. This evidence suggests that the highest authorities
were dissatisfied with the initial response to events in Weng'an at local
level, and demanded an investigation into their root causes. The contrast
between the immediate official reaction and what was to follow within a few
days shows how the party's style of governance is evolving.

A
power beyond law

China's breakneck economic development since
the mid-1980s has to a certain extent been founded on the premise that the
state's monopoly on violence will protect the government and official
institutions even as unfair burdens are imposed on the public. For two decades
and more, Deng Xiaoping's mantra of "stability above all else" has been
the highest article of faith at all levels of government. Those who protest or
petition to the authorities - no matter the cause - can according in principle
be accused of "breaching stability", and subject to legal repression.

The most common examples of this are the
forced relocation of urban residents whose homes are to be demolished, and the
appropriation of farmers' land in the countryside. The lack of any balancing
power or democratic accountability has led to officials using ever cruder
methods to deal with disputes. At the scene of almost all conflicts, the police
tend to be out in force - as an instrument of state rather than of social
protection. The use of state agencies as a tool in official hands is reflected
in the way that the party secretary of Xifeng county, Liaoning province sent
police to Beijing to arrest a journalist at a large newspaper who had written
an article that the secretary found offensive (see Edward Cody, "Move to Arrest Journalist Sparks
Backlash in China",
Washington Post, 9 January 2008) .
This is but one classic example of the abuse of police power with no regard for
law or principle.

It is obvious that this form of governance
cannot persist. Weng'an helps to show why, in three ways.

First, citizens have more access to
information and freedom in circulating it than ever before. The fact that so
many members of the public knew that the authorities' version of events in
Weng'an was untrue or deficient, and were able to post their own stories and
experiences, means that the total monopoly of information that was a bulwark of
state power no longer holds (see Geoffrey A Fowler & Juliet Ye, "Chinese Bloggers Score a Victory
Against the Government", Wall
Street Journal, 5 July 2008).

Second, the Weng'an riot is revealing in that
none of the rioters were themselves affected by the incident which sparked
their protest. After all, the death of a girl in suspicious circumstances
directly affects at most a few families. At a deeper level, however, an
environment where public anger and frustration have been bottled up for a long
time can lead to any available incident becoming the occasion for an eruption
of mass fury. The commentator Xu Zhiyong, who said that "Weng'an could be any county
in China", was right.

Third, local governments often act with wanton
disregard for the law and public opinion. In the past the central government
has chosen to tolerate this situation in order to maintain a united front. This
has meant that the actions of some local officials have come to reflect on the
government as a whole. The inevitable result - evident in Weng'an in the disparity between initial and eventual official
reactions - is a crisis of governance.

A
new rulebook

The central government will do its best to
address the first two points, however difficult this may prove. It also appears
to have understood and begun to take action to meet the third - by, in effect,
refusing to be held to ransom by local officials. Beijing is conscious that if
local officials are not held to account, it will be the object of the public's
accusations: it needs to act to defend itself.

Thus, the logic of the central government's
demand for an investigation of "the root causes of events" in Weng'an is an
examination of the culpability of officials at all levels. Indeed, three
government departments have (independently of the Weng'an events) jointly
released a set of regulations on punishments for the violation of rules on
dealing with petitioning. A close reading of these makes it plain that they aim
to lay responsibility for any unrest with local officials. If a "mass incident"
develops, the local officials responsible will be punished. A single line
speaks volumes: "Those who make indiscriminate use of police power during mass
incidents will be stripped of party membership and dismissed from their posts."

The new rules appear already to be having some
effect. The media has reported on some meetings between local officials and
petitioners. Such gatherings are often extremely crowded, an indication of how
deep and complex the task of solving the problems petitioners raise will be.
True, neither this new approach nor the specific response to the Weng'an riot
can solve all the problems the party is facing. However, the fact that
officials as well as the public are now being held responsible for "mass
incidents" is at least a step in the right direction of solving China's crisis
of governance.